Battling the Last Remnant

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We explore the intricate battle system in Square's upcoming RPG.

By Erik Brudvig

Square Enix's next role-playing game is nearly out for Xbox 360 and we finally got the opportunity to check out the game's battle system in localized English. The game stars Rush, a young fellow whose parents have left him in charge of his sister while they're off doing important research. Now I'm not saying that's bad parenting, but it clearly wasn't a good choice. His sister is promptly kidnapped and so Rush takes it upon himself to save her, presumably before his parents can ground him and take away his allowance.

We'll leave the rest of the story for you to learn while playing the game. It should suffice to say it involves mysterious artifacts known as remnants. For now, let's focus on the combat. In order to succeed in battle in The Last Remnant, you're going to have to break out the old thinker for some planning.

Your battle strategy will actually begin long before you happen across a monster. It begins with the Union Board. This is where you will manage the party in hopes of setting up a winning team, a process that can be equally as important as what you do in the fight itself. The Last Remnant battles work on a system where individual units are grouped into unions. These unions share everything from hit points to attack commands, so it's important that you group characters that will work well together. You can have up to five units in each union which, after you consider multiple unions in battle at once, makes for quite a large battle. Of course, at the beginning of the game you'll be limited as to how many people you can take into battle.

But back to the Union Board. As you recruit new characters, you'll want to get them prepared for the fight. From the board, you can decide who is going in each union and what formation they should take. New formations are learned as you progress through the game and they allow you to do things like place heavy hitters at the front lines to protect your spellcasters in the back. Which formation you go with will directly affect your stats, adding another wrinkle to the pre-planning. You can even take it a step further, and you'll want to, by changing equipment and styles. This will affect which combat arts you can use in battle.

The Last Remnant pulls a card out of Blue Dragon's deck while out on the battlefield. None of the battles, save for some boss fights, will be sprung upon you without warning. Every enemy on the battle field can be seen and, if you want a challenge, grouped together for a massive fight. Pull down the right trigger to activate the Aggro pull and Rush will send out a ring that can draw multiple foes into a single battle. It's tougher, but the rewards for winning are multiplied. Rush also carries a remnant that allows him to slow down his surroundings so that you can quickly bolt around the battle field to group more enemies than normally possible.

And after all of that, you're hopefully ready to fight. The Last Remnant uses a turn-based battle system with quick-time prompts that pop up every now and then to trigger criticals. Since all unions share commands, you'll only actually be giving out a handful of directives each round. Early on in the game, I only had two unions which means I had to be perfect with the directives or I'd quickly see the game over screen.

Here's how it works: Each party starts on opposite ends of the battlefield. Using a minimap, you can gauge where enemies are facing and their relative position compared to your unions. This is important, because the angle that you attack from can make a big difference. Approach from the side and you'll do bonus damage in a flank attack. Run head on and you'll enter a deadlock where each union, friend and foe, will only be able to attack each other until either one dies or one disengages (a move that can make you vulnerable).

Since the unions share everything, it is your job to give general commands to each of them and let each unit figure out what exactly to do for themselves. This can be a simple attack or heal command, or you might want to break out some combat arts or mystic arts (skills and spells). The more complex moves take longer to perform and use some action points, but in my experience are worth it. You can also give support and very generic commands, such as "play it by ear," to help another union at all costs, or to bring an all out attack. And, as is tradition, some units will be able to perform limit breaks after taking enough damage. Rush's Omnistrike is just about strong enough to kill anything I've come across so far.

Organize your units on the Union Board.

It's important to consider the units in each union when giving these commands. Each individual unit has its own strengths, weaknesses, and arts. Some unions might be good for locking in an enemy, absorbing their attacks, while you bring up another union that can safely cast mystic arts. Mixing up the two commands wouldn't be the best strategy.

Once you've given your commands for the round, the battle commences. The camera moves around the field, swinging from one strike to the next in a cinematic presentation that is reminiscent of the movie 300. You could sit back and just watch, but you'll want to pay attention in case criticals pop up. These can happen while your units are attacking, or you might be able to block an incoming attack and counter back. Watch for prompts and hit the appropriate button at the right time and you'll gain the upper hand.

Everything you do plays into a meter on the top of the screen that tracks your party's morale. Play well and you'll get bonuses to attack, defense and speed. When you're on the ropes, things can go from bad to worse quickly as your units start getting dejected. The battles in The Last Remnant don't involve a heck of a lot of player interaction, but the system certainly has a lot going on under the hood. We'll have more on The Last Remnant next week leading up to the game's release, first on Xbox 360 on November 20 and following later for PC and PS3.